Book Pile - Update 2.0

This has been a not-so-great week for me, guys. I've been home from work all week with a pulled muscle in the right side of my chest, and being that I work in retail in the stock room constantly lifting boxes, my body chose not to cooperate with my job, so I opted to take a few days off and rest and not do much of anything. However, by the time this posts I will be an hour away from getting off work for the day, so hopefully my first day back after an unwanted "staycation" won't be horribly painful.

In the meantime, I discovered it's been nearly a year since I last made an update on Book Mountain, and upon finishing one book and subsequently starting another, I figured it's a good time to do so.

I just finished with The Inferno by Dante Alighieri and began Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. Books before those:

Wicked, Son of a Witch,  A Lion Among Men, and Out of Oz - Gregory Maguire
The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (five novels and one story) - Douglas Adams
The Servants of Twilight, Darkfall, and Phantoms (three-in-one) - Dean Koontz

Still in the pile:

A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
 The Time Machine/The Island of Dr. Moreau/The Invisible Man/The War of the Worlds/The First Men in the Moon/The Food of the Gods/In the Days of the Comet - H.G. Wells
Around the World in 80 Days - Jules Verne
Aesop's Fables
The Winter's Tale - William Shakespeare
Classic Fairy Tales - Hans Christian Anderson
Great Tales of Horror - H.P. Lovecraft
Complete Tales and Poems - Edgar Allen Poe
Joss Whedon: The Biography - Amy Pascale
As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride - Cary Elwes


So I've slowed a bit in adding books to the pile, but that's how life goes when you have to be a responsible adult and pay bills and buy food instead of feeding your indulgences. However, my birthday and Christmas are coming up in a few months, so when asked for gift ideas I can always rattle off a few book titles - and while I do enjoy a crisp new book, there's absolutely nothing wrong with buying second-hand as long as no pages are missing and it's readable.

You folks keep your E-readers, I'll stick with my tangible books and novels.

Guest Blogger

Hello my Fellow Geeks! Today blog, Is a special guest blogger. My friend Admrl Suval  has written about Star Trek Las Vegas. Enjoy! 

STLV 2015

I recently attended the largest gathering of trekkies at a convention held in Las Vegas, NV the beginning of August. This con is always a lot of fun and is a four day long party that never stops while the convention runs. This blog will explain what STLV is and why people attend every year. I’ll share some stories and experiences from this year’s con in a future blog.

What is STLV?

Star Trek Last Vegas (STLV) is the largest Trek convention in the world spread across at least 4 days with over 100 guests. The guest list contains not only actors from the shows / movies, but makeup artists, writers, and sometimes those that worked in the background such as Dr. Trek himself Larry Nemecek. I was fortunate enough to meet Mr. Nemecek in the vendor's hall and speak with him for a few minutes. He was kind enough to sign a TNG companion I brought along for reference (in case of trivia nights.

There are not only official events that go on during the day (such as Panels, Official photo shoots, autographs, etc.) but many Facebook groups get together to do Photo Ops in various locations throughout the convention hall. Many groups setup events outside of convention hours. One such event was celebrating an anniversary for two con goers that got married during the 2014 convention.

Creation Entertainment (the company that runs STLV) sets up so many great places to get Photos taken such as the ones below:

The convention hall is laid out in 4 major parts, the main theater, secondary theater, Photo Ops room, and a huge Vendors hall.

·         The main and secondary theaters are where you will see many of the guests and panels that are being presented.

·         The Photo Ops room is where Photo Ops are taken with the guest and also where you will pick up those Photos once ready.

·         The Vendors hall is where all the vendors are located and there are a wide variety of booths ranging from actual vendors to guests that get a table for the weekend to meet fans and sign autographs for a nominal fee.

·         Photo Ops locations throughout the convention hall

Over 5000 regulars attend this convention every year and it keeps growing. There are as many as 20- 30,000 attendees throughout the weekend. Many regulars return each year not only to see the many panels but to catch up with each other. Some only see each other once a year at STLV. The STLV crowd is like one big family and is one of the safest places you can ever be. A good example is I left a bag at my spot in the main theater to go get a drink of water in the back of the massive room. I was gone for a little bit as I ran into a con friend I hadn't seen yet and we talked for a little bit (no panel or actor was on stage at this point). I was probably gone about 20 minutes or so. When I got back to my seat my bag had not been touched, and I thanked my seat mate for watching my bag. There are many stories like this. You may even run into some of the guest walking about in the hallways. Most are willing to stop and talk with you for a few minutes. It’s rare that a guest won’t speak to you or at least say Hello in passing by.

Why do people come from all around the world?

STLV is an experience in itself and every trekkie should go at least once. For me personally I go every year to see friends and those that have become family over the years. This year was my 13th trip and I plan to go as long as STLV is held. To further explain why people go to the convention (and honestly explain it better than I can) see this video

Michael Nguyen put that together during the 2014convention.

In my next blog, I’ll talk about my experiences this year and share a few stories from STLV. Until then Live Long and Prosper.

Thanks ,

Admrl Suval 

Song Dedication

via Ernie Halter fan page on Facebook

 
Have you ever wanted to write a song for the love of your life, or for your arch nemesis, or even for your best friend in the whole wide world, but find it hard to put into words just how much you love/despise/enjoy that person? Never fear! Ernie Halter is helping people make it happen.

Thursday evening I logged into my Twitter account and noticed I had some new followers. While I do not insta-follow every single person who follows me, I do return-follow the people I find interesting - lucky person of the evening was Mr. Ernie Halter. I must admit I'd never heard of him before the other night, but I noticed he had a little blue verified check on his profile, so I did my usual checking to see what that was about and discovered he had a website and that his biography said he was a musician.

Now, for every musical artist or group that has followed me, I do really go listen to some of your stuff. If it just doesn't catch my interest, then I don't return the follow. I don't believe in following any account "just because"; all of the people I follow interest me in one way or another, whether I admire their talents or I like what they have to say or if we're really good friends. Asking/begging me to follow you definitely results in not being followed also. Same for people who decide to unfollow after I follow - that's just greedy and shady. Just being straightforward there, but I digress.

So, I visited his website and gave him a listen, and I liked what I heard. Then I began clicking around and reading various little tidbits and facts as I listened and discovered the coolest thing: he will collaborate with you [for a fee] to write a custom song for someone, anyone of your choosing. He will work with you to get everything just right, from the genre and the lyrics to the feeling and the sound. You can even choose an option that offers your own private performance of the song, though the fee listed is for a certain distance from his home, and anything further than that will obviously cost more for travel expenses.

He also has a 52 Songs Club - 52 songs in 52 weeks.

I highly suggest you go check out his site: erniehalter.com 
Like his page: Ernie Halter on Facebook
Follow his profile: Ernie Halter on Twitter 

Level 9 Tour

Howdy Folks,


I went to NASA Space Center Houston. We did a level  9 VIP  tour, That was  the most amazing thing ever!  Its about $90 but it worth ever penny. You get a cool looking badge that says VIP all access pass.  We got on a nice cool van and went to the see the  Saturn V rocket. It was blasting out so we did a quick tour of that and went to go get lunch. We ate lunch where the astronauts and staff eat in NASA, it was whatever you want to get you can! After lunch we took the van off campus to the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory , It a giant pool that they practice being weightless. After that we went to see the new and old Mission controls, that was amazing. We went to get really old Mission control where most the Gemini and Apollo Missions where.  After that we went  and got to climb up into an  cockpit  where they do simulations. We finished up at the training center, where the space station is set up. Usually if you do the tram tour you you just walk the cat walk, but since did the VIP tour we went down to the ground and got to see things up close, like the robotics area  and the Orion.

In all it was the most amazing 4-5 hours tour you could do! I learn so much stuff, that  I need to go back again so I can process more! You guys really should go ! Here are a few photos from the tour.

Stay Geeky 

TTG 

Uhura's New Away Mission

Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls (2010)

On September 17, 2015 actress Nichelle Nichols, best known for her role as Lt. Uhura on "Star Trek: The Original Series", will be joining the crew of the SOFIA aircraft. SOFIA, or Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, is a modified Boeing 747 outfitted with a 100-inch telescope used to look at the universe during the flight and is meant to complement the Hubble Space Telescope and other orbital telescopes.

SOFIA

Nichols, 82, suffered a mild stroke in June and has made a resilient recovery over the past couple of months and is looking forward to the coming mission. She has been an active advocate for NASA, serving as an astronaut recruit in the 1970s and 1980s to encourage women and minorities to join the space program, and participated in a similar flight in 1977 on the first airborne observatory, the Kuiper Airborne Observatory (KAO) - a modified Lockheed C-141 Starlifter - which began operation in 1974.

KAO

Nichols intends to use StarPower, a site that enables celebrities to raise money for charities, to live share the event.

Opps

Hello Geeks!


So I did it again, I forgot to write something. I really should get back into the groove. I went a con last weekend, and in the process of writing about it but well  I ran out time. I will have ready to go when my turn comes around again!

Here are some of the photos that happen that weekend,

Wasting Time

John Lennon once said, "Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time." Simply put, as long as you're doing something you enjoy, no matter how small and minuscule it may seem, it's worth it.

We've all been there: you don't have a lot of time to work with to start something ambitious, but you don't want to squander it either. Here are some of my favorite little time-wasters:

• Agar.io - in Agari.io you play as a tiny little cell. The object is to eat the little spots to grow bigger and, eventually, eat other cells smaller than you without getting yourself eaten instead. However, beware the spiky green viruses! If you're bigger that one and you drift across it, you'll be split into multiple smaller cells. Other cells can also shoot part of their mass through them to "infect" you and cause the same effect.
• QWOP - in QWOP you play as a marathon runner. Using the Q, W, O, and P buttons you must attempt to advance your runner as far as you can without tripping and falling.
• Finger Sketch Paint - this works with a mouse/track-pad or a touchscreen. You can doodle to your heart's content. Colors and styles are interchangeable; select the Eraser option or refresh the page for a clean slate.
• Software Library: MS-DOS Games - The Oregon Trail, Pac-Man, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, and various other titles appeal to the gamers of decades past.
• Silk - Silk is a click-and-drag art generator. Colors are interchangeable and can be blended, and symmetry and mirroring can be adjusted.
• Find the Invisible Cow - This one is exactly what it sounds like. Audio needs to be on to hear the clues, and the longer you play, the more animals you unlock.

And my all-time favorite time-waster: StumbleUpon. StumbleUpon is a site that lets you "stumble" through various web pages based on your interest settings. You give thumbs-up to the ones you like and want to visit again later and thumbs-down to the ones you're not too keen on. Caution: stumbling can be a MAJOR time-waster and is recommended for when you have quite a bit of spare time, or if you're looking for interesting ideas (e.g. crafts, technology, writing, etc.).